Famed composer Philip Glass has never simply gone with the flow, and that’s one reason he’s a pioneer. On Thursday night, he’s expected to make another unique statement: protesting outside of his own opera Satyagraha on its last night at Lincoln Center as part of the “Occupy” movement.
The protest, according to a release from Occupy Wall Street, will start at 10:30 p.m. and Glass will conduct a “mic-check”, which is basically a speech that is repeated line by line by the audience in lieu of amplification. The participants are planning a general assembly to allow people to speak out at Lincoln Center.
Satyagraha depicts Gandhi’s fight against the South African government. The Occupy Wall Street Movement considers Lincoln Center’s conduct to contradict the message in the opera.
“Yet we see a glaring contradiction in Satyagraha being performed at the Lincoln Center where in recent weeks protesters from Occupy Wall Street have been arrested and forcibly removed for exercising their First Amendment rights to peaceful public assembly,” the release says.
However, as far as I know, no protesters have been arrested at Lincoln Center, and Lincoln Center spokesperson confirmed that to me. Occupy Wall Street hasn’t gotten back to me about who exactly has been arrested there.
The protesters are also upset that Bloomberg LP is one of the biggest corporate sponsors of the opera — Bloomberg is not exactly popular with the folks he evicted from Zuccotti Park.
“The juxtaposition is stark: while Bloomberg funds the representation of Gandhi’s pioneering tactics of nonviolent civil disobedience in the Metropolitan Opera House, he simultaneously orders a paramilitary-style raid of the peaceful public occupation of Liberty Park, blacking out the media, while protestors are beaten, tear-gassed, and violently arrested.”
In addition, Occupy also has problems with Lincoln Center’s association with Tea Party funder David H. Koch who they say “uses philanthropic contributions to the former New York State Theater to whitewash his misanthropic reputation and write off his taxes.”
Here’s a piece by Glass about Gandhi’s influence.
Photo by João Milet Meirelles via flickr.
